You can listen to the audio below. Keep scrolling down to the bottom.
The Journey
I did a thing. I did a thing in the summer that has changed me. Changed me in ways I didn’t expect.
We were advised to hold the story of it close to our hearts - perhaps for a year and a day - until we had learned from it and are ready to give it away. The very very short version is I sat in a Devon wood, was held by the wood for four days and four nights, fasting, contemplating, praying, beholding, confessing.
I think of it often. Actually most of the time. It runs in the background of my life and when I close my eyes, I’m at sit spot, patient, listening to the river at the bottom of the hill, watching the crow fly over and marking the sun’s arc over my left shoulder. My youngest took one look at me when I arrived home and said, “you’ve come back a different species”. In a way I have. Much of what took me there in the first place - the hurt, the confusion, the loss of a long relationship - I left with the Rowan trees. Sometimes they break free and visit, to see if I really am changed.
There’s a book in the experience. More of that soon.
Travelling
E and I are back travelling the county on buses and trains. Our lives are thick with it - timetables, toys, calculating how many people can fit in a certain vehicle. It keeps me on my toes and close to E’s heart. Sometimes I feel I’m in a gameshow - the rapid-fire part: “How many people can you get in a bus? How many in a dump-truck?” I answer as quickly as I can, most are guesses. My prize? His eyes and an affirming “Yes.”
The first time round they are genuine questions, which he is logging in his memory files. He’ll ask me again soon, and I will have to give the same answers. That’s where the trouble begins and this is where I am forever a source of frustration for him. I simply can’t remember. A bus? I guessed about 75, only because I had a crush on a bus driver when I was 15 and after staring in his direction for months, I remember a sign that had the maximum capacity written on it! But a ship? A submarine? No idea.
We’re off to Peterborough this time and the bus smells of vinegar and brick dust. This is the first of six buses - three there, three back - and I’m already queasy at the thought. Since the summer, I often get up earlier than my ego, but today it’s chased me down by 9 o’clock and I’m feeling the impatience rise up in me.
On the first bus, E and I are squashed side by side as the seats fill up and I am angry knots from my shoulder to my bum.
On the second bus, a couple, beer-soaked and happy, try to catch people’s eye so they can have a bit of banter. I don’t want banter.
I am barely on the third bus before I scan for something to complain about.
This all goes on in my head and the deep in me knows that a grey wave will break and all of these complaints will wash up at someone else’s door. It’s always someone else’s fault…
Judgement
It wasn’t long before the wave engulfed me. We’d been on buses for most of the morning, the hum of engines isn’t always soothing and not all fen roads are flat and smooth, so I am worn out by the time we arrive. E isn’t interested in site-seeing, so after lunch we walk around for a bit, killing time before our journey back. He walks a lot quicker than me and is standing at a corner in front of a cafe window. He dances from foot to foot and hums. He’s happy. Two men, on a bench in the cafe facing outwards, are staring at him. One starts to smirk and point. I hear water crashing in my ears.
I’m not proud of what I did. After the fact and back home it makes me chuckle a bit, but I’m not proud. Patience isn’t finite in and of itself, but mine drains away completely when I saw the smirk.
And yet, E doesn’t notice any of this.
So what do I do? Yes, you’re waiting for that. As I pass, I briefly pause and stick my middle finger up at the them and mouth, “fuck off, the both of you. Just fuck off.” Like I said, I’m not proud. I could be more eloquent, I could reason with them, I could ignore them.
The window reflects back to me the pose I made, the finger stabbed at them.
I should be used to it by now. We get it all the time: stares, nudges, sniggers. Ever since he could walk, we’ve been shouted at and we’ve been asked to leave places. All because E is different, is ‘other’ and can’t be ‘controlled’.
And still, E doesn’t notice any of it. Has never noticed any of it.
I breathe, I put a gentle arm around E’s shoulder and we walk back to the bus station. He’s asking me about times and numbers of buses and what’s for tea. I ask myself why I’m still bothered by people sitting in cafe windows staring and laughing.
Forgiveness
Like my capacity for patience, I’m not always good at forgiveness. Especially when it involves loved ones. I don’t understand why grown-arsed people feel the need to single out difference in others and make them, and those they love, feel everything else except joy for existing.
When I’m not true to myself this kind of pettiness bothers me. And then, it eats away at me. What I’d like to do is forgive quickly, sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly. But I hold onto it well past it’s best before date. I stay in the hell created by others, set up camp and stew.
We’re at the bus stop now and we find a bench that the leaky roof has ignored. We’ve still got three buses to go and the anger has left me fuzzy-headed and tired. A group of youngsters, one in a powered wheelchair, another holding their hand, is loaded up with a large rucksack. And another, running after them, a red waistcoat and an assortment of accoutrements around announcing a bright presence. His small bag says I heart Jesus. I immediately love all of them. Others stare, these oddities daring to pass amongst them.
It is of no concern to them.
I smile at them.
That is of no concern to them either.
They’re riding the luminous wave of their own joy, their own particular love for one another, and Jesus of course! How I long for that when I forget myself.
I look at E, knowing he would have forgiven, forgotten and moved on.
It is of no concern to him.
The Return
We’re finally back in Ely, late and wrung out. I don’t feel like I’m exactly winning in life this evening. It’s taken me some time to write this newsletter. I keep circling around the edges of the lessons of a Devon wood in summer, and there’s a new language on my tongue. It’s wilder in ways I’m still working out.
My time there has changed me in so many ways, but the real work is integration. How can I keep the lessons close, in my pocket like a gently smoothed stone? How can I hold fast in every day life…with…people?
I heard Dr Martin Shaw talk about turning a forest experience into village wisdom and it’s time now for me to figure that out.
What I’m learning is not to shore up my frustrations, count the many times I’ve been hurt like treasures to hoard, but also not to forget that this happens all the time, to us all. Hurt people hurt people hurt people.
I’m learning to bring the patience of the sun’s arc across the sky back home.
I’m also learning to use my grief and rage in a different way. Wisely. I’m learning to not look away from the pain of others. I’m remembering again and again that I’m being sold a certain lifestyle and narrative appropriate to my age:
Be quiet
Disappear
Act your age
Wear beige
I think there’s value in upturning the tables to shake us out of our stupor. And I’ll continue to be active in calling out injustices and doing my little bit to help others. Will I be flipping the bird again? Who knows. I’m only human.
Listen to the audio here:
News
What else did I bring back from the Devon hill? A desire to write more. More memoir, more fiction. So, starting in November I’ll be sharing works in progress - short stories, flash fiction, some memoir work, maybe a poem, once or twice a month here on Substack. My newsletter will remain free and if you would like to support my work, you can subscribe to the four pounds a month tier to read all the extras. Thank you!